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Comment by prgmatic | Hacker News Reader

I think the fact that we're seeing a lot of articles, stories, and publications revolving around the thoughts of college becoming useless and the importance of starting businesses says something about the way our culture is changing, and perhaps waking up.

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"I think the fact that we're seeing a lot of articles, stories, and publications revolving around the thoughts of college becoming useless and the importance of starting businesses says something about the way our culture is changing, and perhaps waking up."

When I was 19, 20, and 21, I didn't see the importance of college. Now that I'm 29 (with a bachelor's degree), I do. I suspect that many of these articles are written by students or people that don't have a lot of life experience.

I certainly think that education is important. I think the problem lately is people have been valuing formal education over life experience. College is not the only life experience, nor in my opinion, is it the most important one.

Life is not a checklist!

"I certainly think that education is important. I think the problem lately is people have been valuing formal education over life experience. College is not the only life experience, nor in my opinion, is it the most important one."

College can't replace life experience. But, many of the articles I have seen go in the opposite direction and say that college is useless.

To some it may be useless, but you will only get something out of it if you put in the effort.

Effort is always important, and not the issue here. I think one of the things we need to get out of this discussion is a distinction between college as a single concept, vs various courses of study that have greater or lesser benefits for the student. I'm not going to argue that some courses of study are worthless, but I do believe that many do not provide benefits beyond their costs, (in all senses, not just financially.)

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